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County · Statewide General Election

Orange County Board of Supervisors, District 4

Draft candidate list — early preview until the state’s official list publishes on August 27, 2026.

This is one contest. Enter your address to see every race on your November ballot, and keep track of your picks.

On the ballot

This person is one of five supervisors governing Orange County: the budget, county health and social services, and unincorporated-area land use.

District 4's supervisor seat is open — Doug Chaffee didn't seek a third term — and June's four-way primary left it uncalled. Buena Park Mayor Connor Traut led with 33.27% of the vote; Orange County Board of Education trustee Tim Shaw took 31.26%. They meet in a November runoff for a district that runs through north Orange County, including Anaheim and Fullerton.

Whoever wins takes a four-year term on the five-member Board of Supervisors, which sets a roughly $11 billion county budget covering law enforcement, public health, and social services, and acts as the city council for Orange County's unincorporated pockets. The next supervisor inherits a legal fight over the future of the Be Well Irvine mental-health campus and a county budget squeezed by Airport Fire payouts, discrimination settlements, and federal funding cuts.

The seat is formally nonpartisan, but this runoff sorts almost entirely along party lines: Traut carries the Orange County Democratic Party and its labor unions, Shaw carries the Republican Party of Orange County and its law-enforcement and business allies. It's also a rematch of sorts — Shaw ran for this same seat in 2018 and lost to Chaffee by less than a point, while Traut has never run countywide before.

Connor Traut

Connor Traut is the mayor of Buena Park, a Chapman-trained consumer-protection attorney who has served on the city council since 2018. He frames the race as continuity — public safety funding, housing near transit and jobs, and the renewable-energy push he ran in Buena Park, carried up to the county level. He led the June primary with 33.27% of the vote and carries endorsements from outgoing supervisor Doug Chaffee and sitting supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento.

Strengths

A deep bench of institutional Democratic and labor support, plus six years on a city council running a small business, MACK Athletics, which owns a minor-league baseball team.

Trade-offs

He's never held countywide office, and the same union and Democratic-official backing that broadens his coalition also ties him to the outgoing supervisor's record.

Keep in mind

Traut is a practicing attorney at his family's personal-injury law firm and moved to Buena Park in 2017, a year before winning his council seat — a residency timeline opponents have raised.

Tim Shaw

Tim Shaw is an Orange County Board of Education trustee and former La Habra city councilmember who narrowly lost this same District 4 seat to Doug Chaffee in 2018. He's running as a fiscal conservative — more public-safety funding, road and transit fixes drawn from chairing the Orange County Transportation Authority, and school choice. He took 31.26% of the June vote and has the Republican Party of Orange County and Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes behind him this time.

Strengths

Chaired the county transportation authority, spent over a decade on the La Habra council and county Board of Education, and carries this cycle's Sheriff and GOP endorsements.

Trade-offs

He already lost this same seat once, in 2018, and drew legal scrutiny over holding two elected posts — the county Board of Education and now supervisor — at once.

Keep in mind

Shaw points to $185 million in reserves built during his Board of Education tenure as proof of fiscal discipline; his platform also pairs mental-health investment with arresting homeless people who "create criminal issues."

How the June count flipped

Shaw led by more than 3 points on election night. Late mail ballots, which typically break more Democratic, pulled Traut ahead over the following days, and the certified count gave him the edge, 33.27% to 31.26%. Term-limited Fullerton Mayor Fred Jung and La Habra councilmember Rose Espinoza split the remaining third of the vote almost evenly and did not advance.

Financial info

Tim Shaw

$110,816raised
  • Small donors$3,8864%
  • Individuals$57,97355%
  • PACs & committees$19,10018%
  • Businesses & other orgs$23,70023%
  • Self-funding$10<1%

Connor Traut

$251,636raised
  • Individuals$160,64264%
  • PACs & committees$64,16926%
  • Businesses & other orgs$26,82511%

Figures are CA Form 460 filings through 2026-06-30, per the OC Registrar of Voters' e-filed transaction exports, retrieved 2026-08-31.

June 2 primary — how they advanced

Connor Traut33.27% · 37,726 votes
Tim Shaw31.26% · 35,446 votes
Rose Espinoza17.87% · 20,258 votes
Fred Jung17.60% · 19,955 votes
Source review: Strong (89/100) · 10 cited sources

Official records anchor this contest, with several source types checked for context; advocacy or endorsement sources are treated as attributed perspective.

Review note: OC Independent may have more bias because it is an advocacy voter guide compared to other formal government and nonprofit journalism sources.

Last updated August 31, 2026.